


From Zero

by DizzyTango



Series: sun and moon [2]
Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spirits, But mostly angst, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, I'm Sorry, Loss, M/M, Mentions of Suicide in Ch2, My god the angst, Reincarnation, Sexual Content, Star-crossed, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-08-20 21:19:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16563338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DizzyTango/pseuds/DizzyTango
Summary: The thing about the universe, Lee Hoseok has found, is that it has a way of catching hold of your darkest thoughts, your greatest fears, and bringing them into the light.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry.

The thing about the universe, Lee Hoseok has found, is that it has a way of catching hold of your darkest thoughts, your greatest fears, and bringing them into the light.  
  
Hoseok is retching, throwing up, but it’s not vomit that leaves his mouth, rather a smooth molten sunlight that seems more like liquid gold. He’s clearly in agony, eyes clenched and tears springing forth, dotting his lashes, dirtying his face. He’s shaking, trying desperately to breathe in clean air through his nose but he sputters, fails and Kihyun realizes he has no idea what to do. He steps closer, wants to help, but Hoseok shakily holds up a hand.  
  
“Y-You’ll get hurt,” he wheezes and when he speaks, steam mists the air. He’s literally being burned apart from the inside, “...You’ll get burned.”  
  
So Kihyun just crouches there some feet away, watching and allowing his own tears to course his cheeks as he watches the man he loves in indescribable agony. He wrings his hands hard enough to bruise them, watching Hoseok’s hunched, trembling form. Hoseok’s hands are clawing at the grass below them and Kihyun finally coughs, raising a sleeve over his nose and mouth at the way the leaves and twigs and grass below him catch fire in whatever liquid sun pours from his mouth.  
  
But it’s not just his mouth.  
  
When he glances up Kihyun sees, to his horror, that the same molten light streaks from his nose, from his ears,  from his eyes, running long, lines of gold down his pale skin before they drip off, burning the ground below him.  
  
“Hoseok,” Kihyun says shakily after a few minutes of just… witnessing this helplessly. Hoseok doesn’t even seem to register his name being said.  
  
And then it stops. Just like that. Hoseok gasps shakily, deeply, and it terrifies Kihyun because it sounds like a death rattle. Hoseok slumps to his side with a loud ‘thud’, eyes closed, and Kihyun scrambles to his side, keeping an eye on the horizon. Night is approaching rapidly and as he gathers Hoseok into his arms, he can see the man is already beginning to fade away as the sun dips beneath the horizon.  
  
“Hoseok,” he says desperately and is reminded that, yet again, he’s sobbing, his own tears leaving streaks of soft silver light that splatter on Hoseok’s face.  
  
“Ki’,” he manages breathlessly, like it’s all he can do, like it takes everything he has. His eyes open to small slivers and Kihyun can see his pupils burn with the same golden glow they always do. And though Hoseok can never tell Kihyun the truth, he knows exactly what’s going on. His body is rejecting his sun spirit. It’s killing him from the inside out. And it will. It’s not the kind of thing someone can be saved from. There is no cure. There is no intervention. He’s reaching the end of his journey as a sun spirit.  
  
“It’s okay,” Hoseok reassures him, “Sometimes there are… complications. Sometimes our souls and the actual spirits that inhabit us… they don’t always play together really well.”  
  
Slowly, shakily, he reaches up, holding Kihyun’s cheek lovingly in the palm of his hand. He runs his thumb lovingly over his lips.  
  
“...I’ll… I’ll be better at twilight. Tomorrow. I’ll be better.”  
  
“You’ll be here?” Kihyun asks desperately, trying to bite back tears and be strong for Hoseok who is still clearly in unimaginable agony. He turns his face further into the warmth of Hoseok’s palm, breathes deeply his scent, and doesn’t fail to notice how much it comforts him even in the midst of this indescribable pain.  
  
“Of course. Nothing could keep me from my starlight.”  
  
The nickname sends shivers up Kihyun’s spine and suddenly he’s crying again, pressing kiss after kiss after kiss into Hoseok’s palm because it’s the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth and reality.  
  
“Promise,” he sobs into his hand and Hoseok actually chuckles a little. When Kihyun looks up, there’s a soft smile on Hoseok’s face.  
  
“I promise,” he responds and his words are both firm and soft, an absolute promise.  
  
Kihyun has no time to say anything before the sun vanishes below the horizon and Hoseok scatters away in a flurry of golden, fiery sparks.  
  
Now… he waits, staring forth into the inky darkness of night.  
  
He doesn’t move a muscle until twilight comes again.  
  
  


  
As promised, Hoseok is back at Twilight, gossamer pale and lacking the usual biting shine in his eyes.  
  
They don’t talk about what happened, not yet.  
  
They sit together on a bench, Hoseok lying with his head in Kihyun’s lap as the other man gently runs a hand through his hair. He listens to Hoseok’s quiet breaths, watches the faint mist of gold that slips past his lips, a mist he assumes is the essence of his sun spirit slipping away. He hesitates before gently running his fingers though it, tracing what feels like a warm summer breeze, and feels impossibly sad.  
  
Hoseok doesn’t speak save for the moment the sun crests the horizon, softly muttering ‘I’ll see you tonight’ before it’s Kihyun’s turn to disappear.  
  
  
  
And they continue like that for longer than Kihyun can keep track of. Only now (where in the past they had met every twilight and every dusk), there are some days where he doesn’t see Hoseok at all. Those are the days he lives in constant fear that he’s seen him for the last time, that the sun spirit inside of him has finally taken its toll and he’s gone forever. But then he’ll reappear again, looking drastically worse for wear, thin, sometimes shaking, but he’ll smile and pretend he was never even gone. Kihyun quickly realizes _these_ are the times where he disappears to have his _episodes_ like the one Kihyun had accidentally witnessed that fated twilight.  
  
It quickly becomes the topic of heated debate for them.  
  
“You shouldn’t hide from me when… _it_ happens,” Kihyun says to him one twilight as they lay together in the dewey grass, Kihyun wrapped warmly in Hoseok’s arms, cheek resting on his chest. He glances up, tries to catch Hoseok’s eyes, but the man refuses to meet his gaze.  
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,”  
  
Kihyun can’t even find it in himself to argue. He closes his eyes, clenches them shut to the point he feels tears begin to well and fall quietly down his cheeks, shining like stars. He knows what Hoseok’s doing. He knows he’s trying to protect him, keep him from seeing the fact that the man he loves is _dying--_ but truly, it does Kihyun no favors.  
  
“I want to help you,” Kihyun continues softly and he feels Hoseok tense beneath him. Then a moment passes and- Kihyun can feel him trembling now. He moves to sit up, wants to look him in the face, comfort him, but Hoseok’s arm around him holds him tightly.  
  
“You can’t,” he finally manages, running a soothing hand down Kihyun’s side, hoping Kihyun misses the tremble in his voice. He doesn’t. Instead he peers up at the fading stars, listening to Hoseok’s shaky breaths.  
  
He doesn’t speak again until it’s just moments from sunrise.  
  
“...I want you to remember me like this when I’m gone. Not me when I’m sick. Like this. With you,” Hoseok says shakily and holds him even closer and Kihyun immediately feels cold.  
  
It’s the first time Hoseok has referenced that this -- that _he_ \-- is coming to an end.  
  
Kihyun doesn’t have a moment to question it, doesn’t have a moment to really process it before the sun crests the horizon and he’s fading in a shattering of stars. Hoseok is left alone, laying on his side, the last silvery essences of Kihyun swirling through his fingertips and into the lightening sky.  
  
He curls in closer on himself, sobs, curses whatever God or cosmic twist of fate brought them here, brought them together, only to so cruelly tear them apart.

 

  
They’re never quite the same after that morning. Kihyun never mentions his episodes again and they never again speak about his mortality (if it can even be called that for a spirit). They simply try to enjoy one another in the moments they have. Hoseok holds him closer, kisses him deeper, and Kihyun allows himself to be lost in the love so freely given.  Hoseok takes the time he needs to be sick and recover and always comes right back to Kihyun’s arms. And Kihyun would be lying if this… new routine didn’t somehow make him feel safe, as if any and all bad things that could happen to them were a thousand miles away and not potentially around the next bend.

 

  
  
One of the few graces given to them in all of their star-crossed glory are eclipses. The crossing of the sun and moon, of night and day, light and dark, always gives them more time together. Not much, but given the chronic briefness of their meetings, even something like an hour on each side of totality is a godsend.  
  
Kihyun is straddling Hoseok’s hips, showing a bit more care than he previously would have if not for Hoseok’s health. He moves slowly, helping Hoseok from his shirt before beginning work his lips down his neck, his chest, his torso, each kiss perfectly pronounced, unique, each a statement of feelings that didn’t need words to be understood. He can see goosebumps ghosting Hoseok’s flesh and tries to bite back a small smile, glancing up his body to see the man is watching him. He begins working at the buttons on Hoseok’s jeans, feeling how hard he already is underneath the fabric, and his fingers are fumbling. Eclipses are the only events they ever have to truly enjoy one another, be with one another. Twilight and Dusk are just far too brief.  
  
He manages to get the button undone, as well as the zipper, and helps him kick them off, tossing them (belt and all) off to his right. They crash loudly against an unfamiliar coat rack and a blush  dusts Kihyun’s cheeks. As spirits, they don’t have their own homes, nor the money for a place like a hotel. This time around, an unoccupied rental property will have to do.  
  
Kihyun begins stripping his own shirt off, and Hoseok is anxiously beginning to get Kihyun’s jeans off as well before the other man is sitting up, desperately pulling him into a surprisingly rough kiss. Hoseok’s hand holds the back of Kihyun’s head tightly, fisting in his hair as his free hand finally frees the buttons on the front of Kihyun’s pants. A small growl echoes from the back of his throat and Kihyun shifts, pulling both his jeans and boxers from his body as his desperation to be even closer to Hoseok becomes overwhelming. He, like Hoseok, is already hard and Hoseok wastes no time wrapping his hand around Kihyun’s cock, continuing to kiss him roughly as he jerks him off.  
  
And it doesn’t take much, between Hoseok’s closeness and warmthness of hand and the ferocity of Hoseok’s mouth on his own. Kihyun doesn’t mind how fast he comes, splatters of white painting Hoseok’s hand and his own stomach. They have time.  
  
Kihyun’s mind goes blank, pure white at the sensation until-  
  
Something is off.  
  
“H-Hoseok,” He breathes heavily as he comes down from the high, finding it hard to from words as Hoseok begins pressing him down into the mattress and Kihyun hisses, running his nails down Hoseok’s chest. He shivers at the intensity he sees in the other man’s eyes, but he doesn’t respond.  
  
He seems… desperate, more desperate than he should be. Sure, time is scarce - it always is for them - but there’s something about the desperation Kihyun sees in him that doesn’t turn him on, but rather terrifies him.  
  
“ __Hoseok.”  
  
“We don’t have much time,” the other man finally says, breathing the words into Kihyun’s mouth, but his voice is shaky.  
  
“We have plenty of time.”  
  
They should have a cumulative 2 hours of time together for this eclipse: one before totality and one after. And because it’s a solar eclipse, there will be a period of a few minutes in between where Hoseok will vanish with the sun, only to reappear once totality ends. It’s nothing to be so desperate over.  
  
“We have after the eclipse too-”  
  
What happens next is what Kihyun expects the least. A sob racks its way from deep in Hoseok’s chest and his hand falls away from Kihyun’s hip to brace himself and try not to collapse.  
  
Something is very wrong.  
  
And it doesn’t take long to figure out what it is.  
  
“...We have after the eclipse too,” Kihyun asserts, but his voice is higher and it’s less of a statement and more like a desperate question he needs confirmation to.  
  
Hoseok doesn’t respond. He turns his head away, blinking frantically as if to keep tears at bay. Kihyun can see the tell-tale golden glow lining his lashes.  
  
And it all makes sense.  
  
It all makes sense why Hoseok is in such a rush.  
  
Hoseok knows he won’t be back after the eclipse.  
  
Hoseok knows this is his last day with Kihyun, his last day to kiss him, his last day to hold him-  
  
Kihyun feels like he’s going to throw up and scrambles out from beneath Hoseok, eyes wide, his own face beginning to become slick with tears.  
  
“You weren’t going to tell me?” he can’t tell if it’s an accusation or an exact question and honestly, he doesn’t really care. Because he’s just been told, with the time they’ve already burned with foreplay and messing around, they probably only have forty-five minutes left together. Forty-five minutes _total_. After all these years and-  
  
“I didn’t know how,” Hoseok manages and there’s something about his voice that just sounds… dead. Already dead.  
  
Kihyun shakes that thought from his head and watches as Hoseok pauses then shifts, pulling away from Kihyun. He grabs his nearby shirt, cleaning them both up a little in complete silence.  
  
“...In this situation,” Hoseok starts slowly, and it’s clear from the thickness of his voice that he’s fighting off tears, “...all I could do was hurt you. If I told you. If I didn’t. If you… somehow found out another way. There was no good way.”  
  
Silence. Hoseok looks down at his lap.  
  
“I’m reincarnating, Ki’. That’s what all of this has been. My soul isn’t suited to be a sun spirit anymore. It’s eating me alive and… the universe is giving me a chance to move on.”  
  
“...you’re dying,” Kihyun says hoarsely and he’s surprised how stable his voice is given the fact tears are pouring down his face.  
  
“...In a way.”  
  
There’s nothing to say to that. Kihyun finds his tears become coming harder and Hoseok seems to take notice. He hesitates, as if afraid, then moves a bit closer to Kihyun, wiping the tears from his face but doing nothing about his own. It’s as if he doesn’t realize he’s crying too. A moment pauses before Hoseok pulls him into his arm and coaxes him to lay down, caging him in the warmth of his arms. They’re face-to-face and Hoseok bows his head, kissing away a tear he had apparently missed.  
  
This is everything he had always been so terrified of. He had never wanted to leave Kihyun behind. He would do anything to take his place, suffer apparent eternity alone, as long as it meant Kihyun never had to face a single solitary day. The universe cared not for such pleas.  
  
“Just hold me,” Kihyun mutters softly into Hoseok’s neck and the elder man does, setting his chin on the top of his head. He runs his fingers reassuringly down Kihyun’s back and continues to fight back tears as he feels the man in his arms tremble, dissolve into another fit of tears.  
  
Hoseok quietly whispers to him, saying all of the things he’s always wanted to say, saying how much he loves Kihyun until he feels he might go hoarse. And though it feels pointless, he tries to reassure him that what might seem like eternity now might not always. It’s that thought that makes Kihyun look up.  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“...I believe our paths will cross again,” Hoseok says after a long moment, not wanting to give false hope. He doesn’t understand reincarnation; hell, he doesn’t understand what they are __now. But there’s something so deep inside him that’s screaming that this won’t be the last he sees Kihyun. The universe has tied them so tightly together and that is a bond not easily broken; not by life, not by death.  
  
Kihyun nods numbly, arms tightening around Hoseok, trying to soak in every bit of his warmth, trying to commit the feel of his skin and his scent and the sound of his breath to eternal memory.  
  
“I’ll never stop looking for you,” he pledges, voice soft from sobbing.  
  
“When you reincarnate- I’ll never stop looking. I’ll find you. Even if you don’t know me. Even if you won’t remember me.”  
  
It feels so much like good-bye and that’s because it is. Kihyun can feel Hoseok fading as the eclipse progresses. They have minutes.  
  
Hoseok seems to realize this too. He reaches down, tilting Kihyun’s chin so he can kiss him once more, though while softer it is no less desperate than before. The kiss says more than his words ever could and Kihyun feels so incredibly and deliciously warm and loved that he feels his heart might explode.  
  
“I love you. Forever,” Hoseok promises against his lips.  
  
“I’ll find you,” Kihyun promises tearfully again and he can feel Hoseok becoming less solid in his hands, his body beginning to mist away in the beautiful golden sparks he’s seen so many times. Only this time will be the last time.  
  
“I love you,” he finally says, rubbing his eyes and meeting Hoseok’s gaze, refusing to cry in their final moment together.  
  
Kihyun can sense the moment of the eclipse’s totality.  
  
It’s the same moment where the love of his life leaves him forever.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kihyun begins his existence without Hoseok.

The first year without Hoseok is unbearable.  
  
Kihyun spends his nights sitting silently on the hill overlooking the river, their spot, and watches the horizon until it tinges pink and gold with the impending sun. He seems more a statue than a spirit, knees pulled to his chest, hand cradling his jaw as moonlight gleams in his eyes. The spot at his side seems unbearably empty, the scarf he refuses to unwind from his neck impossibly tight. Occasionally he casts a glance to his right, stares at the small patch where (no matter how much time passes), no grass seems to grow, edged with the soft burn of the sun.  
  
And he hopes.  
  
And the hope hurts.  
  
But he hopes nonetheless.  
  
He’s always left alone as the rays cross the water and send him dissolving into stars.  
  
People say the night sky over Seoul seems dim; the moon pale and stars mere shadows of their former selves.  
  
Little do they know, it’s because their moon spirit is a shadow of his former self as well.  
  
  
  
Year Two is when he begins to truly accept Hoseok is gone, elsewhere, reincarnated. That he’s a thousand things that will never bring him back to Kihyun and that, somehow, hurts more than the year of false hope. It’s only then, once past his denial, that he begins to move on. Or at least, as much as he possibly can. He’s been alone once, a long time ago, before Hoseok. Logically he should be able to do the same now.  
  
But it’s not the same, can never be the same. He closes his eyes and sees Hoseok, can almost feel his touch, almost hear his breath as he leans in, brushing their lips together. Sometimes Kihyun becomes so engulfed in these moments, these memories, that when he opens his eyes and finds himself alone, it’s almost too much to handle.  
  
  
  
Year Five is when he reaches the depths of his depression and loneliness and wonders if, perhaps, there is a way out of whatever cosmic prison sentence he’s been committed to, whatever it is that keeps him from, like Hoseok, being reincarnated, being human. And he starts asking questions of the few other spirits he knows and is immediately met with… horror and disgust and just… confusion. And it’s then he realizes that what he experienced with Hoseok is even more extraordinary than he had previously thought. It was unprecedented. No one could give him another example of a time it had happened; sun and moon coming together, falling in love. It appeared there were no love stories of their kind at all, as if love was something beyond them. But it wasn’t, because it was something he and Hoseok had found in one another.  
  
“Is there… a way to make myself reincarnate?” he finds himself asking one of Hoseok’s old friends, Hyunwoo, a sage, impossibly old sun spirit.  
  
The man merely shakes his head, sighs, but there’s a sadness in his eyes, a sadness for Kihyun.  
  
“Hoseok being allowed to move on… to reincarnate… that doesn’t happen often,” Hyunwoo says slowly, clearly thinking of the cleanest, most definite way to say these words in the fading of the sun. They only have a few moments to talk, separated by the sun and stars just as much as Hoseok and Kihyun had been themselves.  
  
Kihyun pauses to think, biting at his lip hard enough that he feels it begin to burn and prickle, warning of blood.  
  
“I saw what happened to Hoseok before he reincarnated. The sun spirit was killing him, burning him from the inside out,” he begins slowly, but his mind’s eye is haunted by how sickly Hoseok had been in the end, of that violent episode where pure sunlight had fought its way from his body.  
  
“He died, in the end. He died and that’s how he reincarnated.”  
  
Hyunwoo says nothing, watching with dark, solemn eyes.  
  
“...What if I die too?”  
  
“Your soul and your moon spirit are fine. They seem to be thriving together. Your spirit will not kill you, not the way that Hoseok’s did,” comes a simple, concrete reply but Kihyun is shaking his head, playing at the bottom of his scarf as he thinks how to phrase the delicate thing he is about to say.  
  
“I know that. I feel them. I can feel them in harmony.”  
  
“Then…?”  
  
“What if I kill myself?”  
  
Silence. Hyunwoo’s eyes widen and it’s the first time he shows anything other than just cool and collected.  
  
“You’re an immortal being-”  
  
“But I _bleed_ ,” Kihyun cuts him off, sounding more and more desperate, “And any being that bleeds can _bleed out_.”  
  
The alarm is clear on Hyunwoo’s face and he takes a step towards Kihyun, eyes snapping to the setting sun. There’s very little time before he disappears.  
  
“It won’t work,” he says, voice rushed as he shakes his head desperately.  
  
“And why not?” Kihyun can’t help but let his tone bite, a kind of sharpness he feels is impossible to hold back lest it cuts into him himself.  
  
“Hoseok was able to die for one reason and one reason only: there was a place for his soul to go. A place for him to reincarnate,” Hyunwoo says and he’s shaking a little, the gravity of the situation hitting him full on. Suddenly he’s in a position where he has just moments to make Kihyun understand why trying to kill himself, try to force reincarnation, will never have the outcome he hopes it will have.  
  
“You don’t have that,” he continues and he takes a step closer to Kihyun, but he’s fading. He’s translucent now and Kihyun can see shadows through his form.  
  
“So what happens if I die?”  
  
“The Void. Your soul disappears. You probably will never get the chance to reincarnate ever again,” he says firmly, but can’t edge the desperation from his tone.  
  
Kihyun bites at his lip again, eyes cast away from Hyunwoo. To his horror, Hyunwoo realizes Kihyun is still considering it.  
  
“If you do that… you will never see him again, Kihyun,” he says harshly, bluntly, “You will _never_ see Hoseok again.”  
  
Kihyun’s eyes snap back to Hyunwoo again, watching the man as he continues. For some reason, his eyes are burning and he blinks back silver tears.  
  
“...But if you wait this out… maybe you’ll reincarnate and… you won’t remember this. It won’t rule you. It won’t hurt you anymore. You’ll be free. Or-” Hyunwoo falters, clearly rethinking what he was about to say.  
  
“ _Or_?”  
  
Still hesitation. The sun is a mere sliver against the horizon. Hyunwoo has just moments.  
  
“Hyunwoo, _please,_ ” Kihyun begs desperately and his voice cracks when he does, drawing a look of pity from the other man.  
  
“Or… you continue like this. And you can try find him. Because he’s out there somewhere. I can’t even begin to guess where. Or if he’s even been reincarnated yet. Or if he was even reincarnated in this era or in the past or far future but-”  
  
“But I could find him,” Kihyun whispers in awe and it’s the first time it’s actually occurred to him. His mourning had kept him so set and focused on the _spirit_ he knew that he had completely forgotten that Hoseok was going to be reborn _human_. Flesh and blood. Alive and wholly him.  
  
And at that thought, tears finally course down his face, silent, and he covers his mouth with a shaking hand.  
  
“It might not be easy. You might have to wait a long time,” Hyunwoo says slowly, “...And you might never find him.”  
  
“But I might. And that’s more than I had ever hoped for,” Kihyun breathes out, but it’s to the empty air. Night has finally fallen and Hyunwoo is gone.  
  
Kihyun remains standing for another moment, desperately clutching the scarf around his neck before his legs grow weak beneath him and he collapses to the grass below. He stays there, sobbing, but for the first time since losing Hoseok… it’s out of happiness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to break up the last chapter to try in an attempt to keep some of the weight of some of these scenes. I didn't want them to get lost in a longer chapter and lose their impact. I'm so sorry it's short, but I feel like it matches the pace I want for the remainder of the story.
> 
>  
> 
> Please come hang with me on [ my Twitter](https://twitter.com/neonnightlites) ! I need more Kiho friends and I also posts snippets and spoilers~

**Author's Note:**

> It isn't over yet.
> 
> Feedback, as always, is appreciated. It keeps me going~
> 
> Please come hang with me on [ my Twitter](https://twitter.com/neonnightlites) !


End file.
